Puzzler Block #2

 Our little social group met yesterday morning and over breakfast, the next block in the Puzzler series was selected. Here's mine. I think it looks pretty good along side the first block:

Giddyup!

Quilted, bound, and labeled, "Giddyup" is now ready to be donated to our guild's charity project. Sandi Wagner, of Sew Fine Quilting, quilted this with a cowboy motif pantograph. There are bucking broncos, cowboy hats, and cowboy boots in among the swirls and loops of this fun pattern. The back is pieced from leftover chunks of plaid fabric that I am trying very hard to get rid of.  I will also make a pillow case of similar fabrics to hold the quilt.

Here is a second one made of plaids for the same charity project. I will quilt this one myself.

Another homely (in my opinion) quilt top that some young boy will be able to cuddle up with.

Progress

Lazy Sunday mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter. The green and white half square triangle borders are completed. Today I will sew them on. I have the outermost border, portion seen below, partially made and hope to finish them today. Maybe this will be finished by tomorrow!

Vintage Bow Tie Quilt

Several years ago, I bought two vintage quilt tops off eBay. This is one of them that I "rescued." It was quite dirty, although otherwise well-pieced. It is pieced by hand but I added the blue border and the outermost white one by machine. I spent several hours yesterday and today pressing it and marking it for the church hand quilting group that will quilt it for me in several weeks' time.

Lazy Sunday Detour

I am making a detour from working on the turtle quilt, although this morning I finished removing the paper from the turtle shells. This is Lazy Sunday, another Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt, which ran this year in Quiltmaker magazine. The final steps were revealed a few weeks ago and I decided to go ahead and assemble the quilt top. I want this top finished and ready for the longarm quilter before jumping into Bonnie's next mystery quilt, due to start in November over at her blog. This is another big one, rectangular in shape rather than square like Easy Street.

Easy Street Finished!

400+ inches of binding sewn down! Easy Street is finished. Easy Street was the 2012 Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt. I stuck pretty close to Bonnie's colors but the photo does not do justice to the beautiful colors in this quilt. It was quilted by Sandi Wagner of SewFine Quilting in a fun, funky, fresh new design that perfectly complements the geometric nature of the piecing.

                                       

Here is a somewhat better picture of the quilting which also shows the borders. The turquoise and green batik was a lucky find. If you click on the photo it will enlarge and you will have a better view of the quilting pattern.

One Down, Seven to Go

These are turning out to be more work than I expected. Maybe I can get a second one finished tonight. There are supposed to be embroidered eyes but I think that won't happen. They look okay the way they are and I am not looking for more work on these.

Look Like a Turtle Now?

Nothing is sewn down yet to the background, but it suddenly looks like a turtle! I am really enjoying playing with my stash and so thrilled that I found this pattern. I probably would not have had the skill necessary to make a good job of it when I bought it. Guess I found it at the right time.

Do These Look Like Turtles?

I found a quilt pattern while going through boxes of old stuff from the great garage clean out. Mostly I found embroidery and counted cross stitch patterns, but there was this one quilt pattern in among all the embroidery stuff. It's called Turtle Travels and is by The City Stitcher. These are the shells of the turtles. Fabric will be appliqued in the center and then the resulting piece will be reverse appliqued into the background. Heads, tails, and legs will also be appliqued. I am okay with the fabric choices, except for the center left one. It looks fine up close and personal but there is clearly not enough contrast. There are eight turtles needed for the quilt, leaving me three more to make if I choose to replace the low contrast one. This is straightforward relatively easy paper piecing and with any luck , I may be able to finish them this evening.

A Tisket, A Tasket

Four baskets (almost) completed out of 30 in the pattern "Glorious Baskets." I can't give any more information about the pattern as there is none on the pattern. Not the designer, copyright information, etc. There are two flowers missing from the lower left hand basket. I need to order more perle cotton. The top two baskets are the most successful as far as color goes. The upper right basket was supposed to be done in white, but I changed that to medium taupe, otherwise it was nearly invisible. The backgrounds will be scrappy which will keep the upper left one from looking mismatched.

Improvisational Piecing

I took a class with Jacquie Gering of Tallgrass Prairie last month. The class was on improvisational piecing and based loosely on the traditional log cabin block. This is my completed project. It is hanging over another piece on the design wall, which shadows through on the left side. Anyway, some blocks I would do over if I were so inclined, which I am not. By the time the ninth block was made, it was time to move on. Some energetic quilting will provide surface interest in the large white areas. I tried one of each of the styles that Jacquie showed us, including tunnel, corner logs, courthouse steps, and "anything goes."

Later today several of us will be making a trip to Batiks Plus. Severe restraint will be needed.

Gerda Bengtsson

This counted cross stitch project, started probably back in the late 70s/early 80s, is from a booklet of patterns by Gerda Bengtsson, a Danish needlework designer. I can date it to that era because it was when I was living and working in California and I can recall going to Solvang more than once back then.

The fiber used is Danish Flower Thread and when this project was uncovered in the great garage clean out a few months back, all the thread needed, as well as the partially completed project, was in the original bag from Thumbelina Needlework in Solvang, CA. The chart is who knows where and that is the reason this remains unfinished. A google search turned up sources for Bengtsson's patterns, now out of print. They are on the way to me. Another pleasant surprise is that Danish Flower Thread is still available. I love the internet!

What is attractive to me about Bengtsson's patterns is that they are realistic without being overdone or "cute-ified." When the patterns come, this project will finally be completed.

Lazy Sunday Reveal

Here is the link to see Lazy Sunday, Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt as published in Quiltmaker magazine: http://quiltville.blogspot.com/search?q=lazy+sunday.

New BOM

The ladies in my small quilting group have decided on a new project. We will be making one block a month beginning in August . One fabric was selected that all must use at least once in each month's block. The focus fabric is from Batiks Plus. The owner is friends with one of the ladies in the group and although it is primarily a mail order online store, we are allowed by appointment to browse the warehouse. Not for the faint of heart or weak of wallet. Be advised.

 The pattern is "The Puzzler" from a 2005 magazine. Each month we will make an 18" block consisting of  nine smaller 6" units. Despite the simple nature of the piecing, regrettably the ripper had to come out of the drawer. I am pleased with the way mine turned out and, again, all the fabrics came from my stash. I finally broke into a pile of batiks I purchased approximately five years ago at Southwest Decoratives in Albuquerque, NM. Despite the name, the store is largely a quilt fabric shop.

This is the fabric we are using in common. Below are displayed the batiks from Southwest Decoratives. The batiks were folded cleverly into triangles, stacked and then tied with raffia. They looked so cute just sitting on the shelf waiting for the perfect project. The pink and rose ones probably won't go into this project.

Here they are again with the focus fabric.